Pain Together. Not Pain Free.

​Yesterday was one of the biggest days of the year in the motor sports world. We had the Indianapolis 500, the Coca-Cola 600, and the Canadian Grand Prix. I wasn't glued to the racing, but I watched enough to be left reflecting today on a single thought.

Mourning.

And maybe more, the beauty that is found in mourning together. For I don't much fear mourning itself; but I do at times fear mourning alone.

In the earliest race of the day, 24 year old David Malukas was passed in the final second of the race by Felix Rosenqvist. The finish was the closest in Indianapolis 500 history; it was the second year in a row young Malukas finished second in this - one of the world's most famous auto races.

Shortly after, Malukas was caught melted into his girlfriend's arms - sobbing. He would say, "Lot of anger, lot of pain. I feel like I’m mourning and just a lot of shock. I just - I still can't believe it. Just to be that close to winning the damn thing. I just can't believe it."

A couple of hours later, I turned on the pre-race show for the Coca-Cola 600. I was moved by a scene in which the NASCAR community showed support for the Busch family, who was mourning the sudden loss of driver Kyle Busch earlier in the week.

As the narrator spoke, Busch's wife and son stood arm and arm, holding each other tight, fighting together through all of the emotions of the ceremony.

A young driver mourning the loss of a dream by inches. A family mourning the loss of a loved one. One loss symbolic; the other irreversible. Yet both produced tears, comfort, silence, touch, and community gathering around pain.

I think sometimes we make the mistake of turning grief into a hierarchy instead of a call to show up. Because when it comes to grief, the body and heart don't pay much attention to the nature of the loss.

Whether it's the loss of attachment, meaning, hope, identity, future, safety, belonging, dreams, possibility..... grief isn't much eased by knowing a loss could have been much worse. Grief is not comforted by hearing or knowing I just lost by inches the biggest dream of my life, but hey, cheer up, I could have lost a loved one.

It is not perspective that comforts, it's arms. It's hearts. It's shared tears. It's humans witnessing pain and moving closer to it and not away.

In the midst of all the powerful scenes yesterday: the engines, the speed, the adrenaline, the crowds, victory lane, the roaring noises....

In the midst of it all, the most powerful scenes for me were a mother holding a grieving child - and that same child holding his mama as if somehow knowing she might need it more, a girlfriend cradling her devastated partner in life, hands on shoulders, heads lowered, people surrounding pain instead of fixing it.

It is hard to feel beauty in pain. But for me, it is hard NOT to feel beauty in people showing up lovingly entering another's pain.

Because the older I get, the more I come to believe that is the secret of life. Not pain-free, but pain-together.

Suffering pain is not the greatest suffering in life, suffering alone is.

We live in a world full of pain; I long for the day when we stop judging the worthiness of one another's pain, and simply start holding it.

Mourning.

Together.